


it's killing me to see you this way

by cascrane (thunder_and_stars)



Category: no sleep in the city of dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28768173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_and_stars/pseuds/cascrane
Summary: The day Maze leaves school, he writes a letter and puts it inside El’s locker for him to find. (He knows the combination because he has to open it for his friend every time El forgets.)





	it's killing me to see you this way

The day Maze leaves school, he writes a letter and puts it inside El’s locker for him to find. (He knows the combination because he has to open it for his friend every time El forgets.)

_El,_

_Hey. Never really thought I’d be writing you a letter, but here we are, I guess._

_You weren’t in school today. You didn’t answer your texts. I’m not sure if you still have your phone, so I thought I’d leave this for you. Call me if you find it, okay?_

_I hope you’re okay._

_Anyway, the reason I’m writing this is that I won’t be in school tomorrow. Or the rest of the week. Or for a while. There’s some stuff going on that I have to deal with, and school’s a bit too much to handle on top of that._

_I won’t get into it now, because you don’t need to worry about it all._

_If you want to talk, call me. If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s okay, but could you please have Key pass on that you’re okay? I’m a little bit worried about you._

_Anyway, I hope I’ll be back in school soon, and I hope I’ll see you then._

_Sincerely, Maze Sosa_

Maze is sitting on the sofa in his house, staring blankly at the wall in front of him. Sofie is next to him, curled up under a blanket, as if she is afraid to take up space, close enough to him to remind herself that he’s real, that she’s real, that they’re there.

“I’m scared,” Sofie says softly, leaning her head onto his shoulder.

“Me too,” Maze admits in the soft darkness.

Danny is still at school. (Nobody’s had the heart to tell him over the phone, and he said he couldn’t come home until Friday, when the semester ends. It’s Tuesday. Friday seems impossibly far away.)

Maze doesn’t have to be doing schoolwork. He knows that. Sofie doesn’t either, and she isn’t doing hers. (Sofie isn’t doing much of anything, and honestly, Maze can’t blame her.) Their mother called the school and got them excused temporarily.

Really, he has a surefire excuse to not be doing schoolwork. Except he can’t just sit around doing nothing, and he can’t help Sofie, no matter how much he tries, and he can’t fix Ale, and he can’t bear to be alone with his thoughts. So he reads his textbooks, and he does his assignments. 

Key emails him all the new work after each period, along with messages saying that he hopes they’re doing okay, hopes things get better.

Maze hasn’t had the heart to respond to any of the messages yet. He doesn’t know what he could possibly say.

Wednesday morning, the first email from Key comes with a photo attached and a small note of _El showed up. He’s okay_. In the photo, El is grinning like an idiot, laughing at something dumb, eyes lit up like flickering fire.

Wednesday afternoon, they get to go see Ale. Maze almost doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to know how bad it is. But Ale is his brother, and he has to do something, so he goes, and he holds Ale’s hand and talks softly to him.

Maze holds Sofie’s hand as she falls apart standing in the hallway, goes into the bathroom with her to help wash her face and steady her breathing (neither of them are ready to be alone), braids her hair as they wait to go see their brother again. They won’t let more than two people in to see him at a time, which means Maze and Sofie wait outside while their mother and Zach talk to him.

Maze is terrified. He can tell that Sofie is too. He doesn’t know how to make it better.

He puts cinnamon in the cheap vending machine hot chocolate that they buy, the kind that tastes like nothing, but it doesn’t matter, since it’s hot enough to scald away their taste buds.

They stay there late into the night on Wednesday, until the nurse behind the desk tells them that they have to leave and come back tomorrow, that they can’t sleep in the waiting room. Part of Maze wants to protest, but he’s so tired, and Sofie looks like she’s about to crumble again, and really, Ale and Danny were always the strong and steady and stubborn ones.

Zach takes them home on the subway. Their mother refuses to leave Ale alone.

Sofie doesn’t want to see her brother like that again, can’t bear to fall asleep with the image of him pale and fragile in the hospital bed swimming in her mind, so Maze goes in to say goodnight to his mother and Ale from both of them, and they go home.

There’s a letter tucked halfway under the door when they get there, _Maze_ scrawled messily across the envelope in handwriting that is undeniably El’s.

Maze takes it into his room as he sinks into his bed and stares at the glow stars that Ale put on the ceiling for him when he was little and afraid of the dark and wanted to watch the stars as he fell asleep. (It almost breaks him, now.)

 _Maze,_ the letter reads.

_It’s El. I mean, you probably got that. Sorry. I’m bad at this. I’ve never written a letter before._

_Anyway, I saw Key at school today. I was going to call you, but then I wanted to stop by, but you weren’t home, so I wrote this for you. Key told me a little bit of what was happening._

_I’m so sorry, Maz. I wish there was something I could do. Let me know if I can help, okay?_

_I’m probably going to call you tomorrow, to check in, to hear your voice. I won’t stop by, because I don’t want to intrude, and I know your family probably wants to be, well, with family right now, not random kids who hang around._

_I saw Ru in the hallway today, when I went to get water. She was crying. She’s really upset. I’m not trying to put anything else on you, y’know, just, I don’t know, she might appreciate a text or something. I don’t know._

_I hope you’re doing okay. As okay as you can be, that is._

_I’m sorry, again. I’m wishing the best for Ale and you and everyone, okay?_

_Love, El_

Maze falls asleep with the letter still clutched to his chest.

During lunch, or, when lunch would be, if he was in school, his phone rings. He picks it up without looking at the screen.

“Hey, this is Marcos,” he greets.

“ _Hey, Maz_ ,” El says. “ _Just checking in on you. Did you get my letter?_ ”

“I did,” Maze says. “Thank you.”

“ _Always. Anyway, how are you doing?_ ”

“Not great,” Maze admits. “Hanging in there. Sof’s having a real rough time, so I’m going to write some stories with her later. That always helps her think a little bit straighter.”

“ _You’re a good brother_.”

Maze shrugs, even though El can’t see it. “Um, hey, I know you might be busy, but could you maybe come over at some point? Not even necessarily today, just… sometime?”

“ _Of course_.”

The bells rings on the other end of the phone call, and the line goes dead, and Maze falls back into his lull with Sofie, dragging her off the couch and getting her to eat in the gentlest way he can.

Ten minutes after the school day would have ended, Maze opens the door to find El, cheeks flushed and breathing heavy, like he ran all the way there.

“You came,” Maze says softly.

“Always,” El says. “For you, anything.”


End file.
